Saintess Summons Skeletons

Were it not for the skeletons weighing the tentacle down, it might have blasted Alith’s head instead of her waist. Even her undead body wouldn’t have saved her from such a blow.

She could do nothing as her upper body fell, grasped by gravity. She still had both her arms but that would do little for her, the second tentacle was coming in for a pierce, she wouldn’t even have time to hit the floor.

Sofia was panicking, she couldn’t heal Alith because of the roof.

But Pareth was still there. He still had [Greater heal]. Sofia felt Pareth’s mana drop to almost zero.

[Greater heal] : Instantly heal a target to full HP. Costs (100* target’s class level/2) mana. 24 hours cooldown. Causes a heavy strain on the target’s soul.

Alith’s body grew back explosively, but she was still under the shock.

“YOUR SKILL!” Dopple screamed.

Out of her stupor, Alith barely managed to move enough to activate [Utterly unimpressed] before the tentacle reached her. Even with the 50% damage reduction, the tentacle still broke through Dopple’s defenses and pierced a hole through Alith’s torso, right below her neck. But it failed to go any further. This tentacle was the one that she had been attacking all this while, and it was already quite weakened.

Alith struck with both her weapons, the tentacle’s tip that had penetrated her flesh was severed from the damaged tentacle. The monster pulled back its limb, it was going to attack again with the other one.

The skeletons had been accumulating on both tentacles, latching on them whenever they neared the ground. It slowed them enough for Alith to escape through a window.

Sofia was there to catch and heal her. Pareth teleported to them as well. Only the graveyard skeletons were left inside to suffer the Phageid’s ire.

Pareth and Sofia were both almost out of mana by now. The monster squid still had one fully functional tentacle, and one that was pretty damaged and missing the tip.

They wanted to finish the thing off, but they were out of options, so Sofia made the decision to retreat. The hit Alith took had been a close call, they had largely underestimated the strength of the monster, they couldn’t afford to take more risks.

Let’s hope it cannot heal…

At least the thing didn’t follow them as Sofia flew them back up to their observation spot on the rampart. Much like it did in the battle, the monster didn’t move from atop the Midenicite sphere. It’s like a bird incubating an egg. [Graveyard of the righteous]’s effect ended as Sofia left its range, the tombstones and skeletons dissolving into a mist of mana.

They had left their backpacks up on the wall, the first thing Alith did was to unpack hers to find and put on a new pair of pants, as her old ones had been destroyed with her. She had taken a fair lot of them from the blue glass factory workers’ old clothes, exactly to remedy situations like these.

‘[Heal Undead] reached level 57’

‘[Graveyard of the Righteous] reached level 101’

‘[Graveyard of the Righteous] reached level 102’

‘[Graveyard of the Righteous] reached level 103’

‘[Graveyard of the Righteous] reached level 104’

‘[Summon blood] reached level 41’

‘[Summon blood] reached level 42’

‘[Summon blood] reached level 43’

Sitting facing one another on each side of the wall, exhausted, they looked at each other.

“Are you alright?” Sofia asked. Despite what she had just gone through, Alith looked perfectly fine, in no small part due to her [Presentable] skill, Sofia suspected.

“Yeah, I’m good. Pareth saved me multiple times in there. I’m feeling a bit queasy, that’s all.”

“... I’m shocked that this is all that does to you. I saw through Pareth. It was gruesome.”

“Quite ironic coming from you… You should know firsthand how it feels burning alive, with all the lightning you've been throwing, so… Do I really need to explain which is worse? I’ve accepted that this is how this world works.”

“You have a point… Would you go back to your world if you could?”

Alith made a weird face but she only thought for a second, “No.”

“Well that’s great, because we’re locked in here… I’m glad though. Thank you for sticking with me.”

“Hoy, Sof, are you making your good-bye speech or what? It ain’t that bad.”

“No, no… I’m just saying… Well. Let’s find a way to finish this thing off then. We have a level debt to pay.”

“I have an idea. A start at least.”

Alith’s thinking was that since the Phageid would attack sound sources of stuff hitting the roof, they could start by making it destroy the whole roof above itself. And then… Maybe Sofia could drop stuff directly on the monster. It had a disadvantage in that Sofia would no longer be able to fly close to the mansion since the monster would see her, but at least she would be able to heal Alith and Pareth if they went back to fight.

“That or we give up, you bolt the damn thing, and we pray that it doesn't alert the other Phageids.”

“That’s even more dangerous… Let’s see… We have a lot of that blue stuff, and technically unlimited sand, bones, flesh and blood. Maybe we can make something out of that.”

“I don’t really see it…”

They kept debating until Sofia thought of something.

“Say Alith, you remember how I told you the Magisterium gave me levels after I pushed him to his death. That means indirect kills still give experience…”

“Yeah and?”

“What if we make the Phageid fall?”

“Fall where? The thing doesn’t even move from its sphere.”

“Well hear me out…”

It was the dumbest plan Alith had ever heard.

They immediately got to work.

 

The mithril Kamas were cutting through the blue stone like through butter, Sofia had taken one as well, the only problem was how short the blades were. Down in the mansion’s first floor, both girls were busy carving away a large hole in the ground.

Since the shape of the weapons was impractical, they had tied them to long wing bones from Sofia’s storage, so that these new ‘handles’ were in line with the blades, at least like this they could cut the ground while standing up.

Since the air outside the city was so weird, and it looked like there was nothing under there, it was an interesting bet whether the creature would die if it fell into this weird black void. But worst case, if it didn’t die, it would at least get rid of the sphere. And getting rid of the spheres meant likely getting rid of the palace’s shield.

Their only problem now was carving a hole large enough right under where the monster was. All the while making as little noise as possible.

They cycled the work shifts with Pareth to get some rest.

One meter down.

Three.

Five.

They didn’t even try to keep track of time. Only slaving away in the hole. This was still better than getting exploded out of reality by the monster’s tentacles. So they didn’t complain. In the empty city, they had nothing else to do anyway.

Realistically, they could have killed the thing by doing the same fight once or twice more. It only had two tentacles left after all. But why take so much risk?

It was around the ten meters mark that Alith hit the bottom. She whispered, “We’re there! It’s really empty under there! I can feel it.” She then drew a circle in the ground with her blade. Once completed, the circular piece of blue crystal fell. Without a sound, it fell down. Sofia and Alih looked into the hole. All they could see was the black void, and the falling chunk of Midenicite, that shrank more and more until it disappeared from view.

They nodded to each other. Sofia smiled, that was the confirmation that her Idea could work; Alith gave her a thumbs up. Now to dig the rest of the hole…

One thing they had thought up during this time was to boil down the blood for water. Sofia needed it, raw blood wasn’t so good for hydration, it turned out.

They had no fire but Sofia’s half cast lightning was very efficient. They went back to the outer city to do that, to be safe. It was disgusting but it worked. The evaporated water collected on the ceiling, all she had to do was scrape it off and drink it.

It was also good training for [Summon blood]. She dumped most of her mana into it, since she had nothing else to do with it anyway, so the skill that had still been low level was upgrading fast. In the meantime, Inspired by Sofia’s feats, Alith was also trying hard to make something work that had been haunting her for a while. To her surprise, to some level of success.

The void outside the city proved to be a very good place to evacuate the thousands of liters of excess summoned blood.

The passage of time was a bit blurry in this city where day and night didn’t exist, but after what felt like at least a week, the hole was done. Chicken Pareth was the one to give the finishing slashes, dragging the kama around on the floor with his beak. He started falling down into the black void, Sofia and Alith were both curious about what would happen if he fell down, but Pareth teleported back, as ordered. They couldn’t take the risk. And also he still held the kama.

Still silent, they stood around the round gaping hole of their creation in the mansion’s floor. The walls were uneven, and just being around it was scary.

Surely this time. We’re killing that squid.